Method and apparatus for distributing requests among a plurality of resources

ABSTRACT

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for distributing a request to one of a plurality of resources. A request is mapped to a location in mathematical mapping space. Each of the plurality of resources is mapped to a respective location or locations in the mathematical mapping space. The request is allocated to one of the resources based on a mathematical relationship between the request location and the resource location in the mathematical mapping space. An apparatus for distributing a request to one of a plurality of resources includes the plurality of resources and an input receiving a resource request. A mapper in communication with the input maps the request to a request location in a mathematical mapping space and maps each of the plurality of resources to at least one resource locations in the mathematical mapping space. A distributor distributes the request to one of the plurality of resources in response to a mathematical relationship between the locations of the request and resources in the mathematical mapping space. The invention also relates to a method and apparatus for requesting data from one of a plurality of servers. An virtual network of nodes is generated in response to a data request. A first node on the virtual network of nodes is chosen randomly, and a path generated from the first node to the root on the virtual network. At least one node on the path is mapped to a respective one of the plurality of servers and data is requested from a server. The node may be mapped to the server using the method and apparatus for distributing a request to one of a plurality of resources of the present invention.

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

Work described herein was supported by Federal Grant No.DAAH04-95-10607, awarded by the United States Army, Federal Grant No.N00014-95-1-1246, awarded by the United States Navy, and CCR-9624239,awarded by the National Science Foundation. The Government has certainrights in the invention.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to allocating resource requests to the availableresources. More specifically, the invention relates to distributinginformation requests to servers capable of storing and providing therequested information.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In large distributed information systems there are servers that storeinformation and there are clients that request information. The WorldWide Web (“Web”) is an example of a distributed information system.There are web sites, which act as servers, and there are clients, whichare computers used by people to obtain information from the servers. Theusers request information from the web sites and the web sites respondto the requests by providing the requested information in the form ofdata, documents, files, or web pages.

Immense growth of the Web places great demands on the infrastructure ofthe Internet that provides the physical connections for the Web. Serviceproviders invest vast sums of money in Internet infrastructure in anattempt to provide acceptable performance despite increasing datademand. Acceptable performance generally implies little or no delay inaccessing information. Two causes of delay are heavy communicationloading a part of a network and a large number of requests loading aparticular server. When part of the network becomes congested with toomuch traffic, communication over that part of the network becomesunreliable and slow. Similarly, when too many requests are directed at asingle server, the server becomes overloaded, or “swamped.”

One of these problems can cause the other, in part because networksoftware is typically designed to repeat requests that are not respondedto promptly. For example, if a server is overloaded, it will not respondto requests quickly, and requests may be resent, thereby increasingnetwork traffic. If a network is overloaded, a request may not reach aserver quickly, and a duplicate request may be sent to the server beforethe server had a chance to respond to the first request, therebyincreasing the load on the server. Both network overload and serveroverload lead to delays in retrieving information.

A server can become overloaded for various reasons. A server storing afew documents that have very high access rates can become overloaded. Anexample of this kind of server is a web site that becomes very popularsuch as a site reporting results of a popular sports event. A serverresponsible for such a site can become overloaded with a large volume ofrequests for a one or a small number of documents containing the latestinformation on the event. Another type of server that can becomeoverloaded is a server storing a large number of documents each of whichis accessed at normal or even relatively low access rates. The serverbecomes overloaded as it attempts to serve a large number of requestsfor many different documents. An example of this kind of server is aserver for a large organization, such as a library, that serves a vastnumber of documents that are accessed on a regular basis.

A general strategy employed to reduce both network traffic andoverloaded servers is replication accomplished by caching. Copies offrequently requested documents can be stored throughout the network,thereby spreading the work of serving the documents across severalservers. In one approach, several clients share a cache server in amanner that is transparent to the people using it. Client requests areforwarded through the cache server, which keeps copies of frequentlyrequested documents and attempts to satisfy requests with a cached copy.If the cache server has a copy of the document, then the request can beanswered immediately with the requested document. If the cache serverdoes not have a copy, then the cache server can request a copy of thedocument from the original site. When the cache server receives a copyof the document from another cache server or from the original site forthe document, it can then answer the client's request. Subsequentrequests for that document can be serviced by the cache because it has acopy of the document. Thus, the load on the original site for thedocument is reduced because the original site does not need to beinvolved in every request.

Referring to FIG. 1A, three clients, Client One 110, Client Two 111, andClient Three 112, each request documents Doc1, Doc2, and Doc3respectively via Cache Server A 100. The cache server answers all threeof these requests in a manner that is transparent to the users. IfServer A 100 does not have the documents requested by Client One 110,Client Two 111, and Client Three 112, it requests the documents from theOriginal Sites 102, 104 for the documents. Once it receives thedocuments it sends the documents to the Clients 110-112.

Caching can reduce network traffic if the cached copy is close, in thenetwork topology sense, to the requester because fewer network links andresources are used to retrieve the information. Caching can also relievean overloaded server because some of the requests that would normally berouted to the original site can be served by a cache server, and so thenumber of requests made of the original site is reduced. There is atradeoff of a greater performance benefit if more clients share the samecache server that is balanced against an increased likelihood that thecache server itself will become overloaded.

One approach to solving this dilemma is to use a group of servers thatfunction together as a cache. Responsibility for answering requests isdivided among the group. There are many ways to divide responsibilityamong the group of servers. One way is to have a client's request for adocument be directed to an arbitrary one of the servers of the group ofcache servers. If a copy of the document is stored in that server, it istransmitted to the client. If a copy is not stored in that server, therequest is forwarded to the original site of the document. This approachdivides the load among the servers, thereby preventing overload of anyparticular server. A client needs to know which servers are available,but the client does not need information about the servers to chooseone. One disadvantage of this approach is that each of the servers willrequest each document from the original site for that document. Thiscould load the original site as the number of cache servers increases.

Alternatively, the server could, if it does not have a copy of thedocument, first forward the request to the other cache servers. Onedisadvantage of this technique is that as the number of participatingservers grows, the number of messages between the cache servers canbecome problematic.

Another approach also uses a group of servers but allocatesresponsibility for documents to particular servers. As part of thisapproach, the client is informed about the allocation of documents toservers so it can address a request to the server with responsibilityfor that document. Instead of arbitrarily choosing a cache, a clientchooses the cache server allocated to the document requested. For thisapproach to be successful, it cannot be unduly burdensome on the clientto determine which cache server to direct a document request. It is alsonecessary to balance the load appropriately among the caches. Forexample, even if all documents are accessed by clients at the same rate,if some caches contain more documents than others, those caches willhave more requests to service, and may become overloaded.

In the context of caching, it would be unduly burdensome to maintain alist of all the documents available in the cache servers. Such a listwould have to be maintained as documents were added and deleted from theoriginal site. An alternative approach is for clients to use a standardhash function to determine from which server to request a document. InFIG. 1B, a standard hash function (h) is used by the clients to chooseamong three cache servers. Client One 110 requests Doc1 from Server A100 since h(Doc1)=Server A. Client Two 111 requests Doc2 from Server B121 since h(Doc2)=Server B. In this example, Server B 121 does not havethe requested document, so it requests the document from the originalsite for Doc2 104. Client Three 112 requests Doc3 from Server C 122since h(Doc3)=Server C. Server C 122 does not have Doc3, so Server C 122requests the document from Doc3's Original Site 104. In this example,after obtaining a copy of the requested document, Server C 122 storesthe document. When Client Four 140 requests Doc3, it also requests itfrom Server C 122, since h(Doc3)=Server C. Server C 122 already has Doc3since it previously obtained a copy to service the request from ClientThree 112. Server C 122 is able to respond to the request withoutplacing any additional load on the network between Server A 100 andServer C 122 and without requiring Server A 100 to take on the load ofthe request from Client Four 140. The hash function serves as a methodfor users to agree on which server is responsible for a document.

Hashing with a standard hash function has the same effect asdistributing the items randomly, because a standard hash function willtend to distribute items approximately evenly throughout its outputrange. This is very desirable because a random assignment of documentsto servers will spread the load of serving the active set of documentsamong the servers. An example of a standard hash function that can beused to distribute documents to servers is f(d)=((ad+b)mod n), wheredocument names (d) are integers, there are (n) servers {0, 1, 2,. . . ,n−1}, and (a) and (b) are some fixed choice of integers. For mostchoices of (a) and (b) the function distributes documents roughly evenlyover the servers.

Referring to FIG. 2A, an original distribution of one hundredthirty-four documents to servers is shown. Here, the document names areintegers, and there are 13 servers (1, 2, . . . , 13}. Some serversstore many more documents than others, and thus in the model of equalaccess frequency these servers are more heavily loaded. FIG. 2B showsthe distribution of documents to servers using a standard hash functionsuch as f(d)=((ad+b)mod 13). In the distribution of FIG. 2B, no serveris responsible for a disproportionately large share of documents.

One disadvantage of using a standard hash function to allocatedocuments, and, therefore, documents requests, to servers is that achange in the number of servers can be disruptive to the caching scheme.In networks such as the Internet, servers frequently may be added to, orremoved from, the network, and these changes need to be incorporatedinto a caching scheme. With the hash function just discussed, adding aserver to the scheme requires changing the range of the hash function toinclude the new server. Changing the range of the hash function mayresult in many documents changing location. For example, if there are(n) servers and the hash function mapping documents to servers isf(d)=((ad+b)mod n), then when a server is added, the hash function ischanged to f′(d)=((ad+b)mod (n+1)).

An example of the change of mapping of documents to servers caused by achange in the number of servers is shown in FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B. FIG. 3Aillustrates the assignment of 10 documents to 4 servers using the hashfunction f(d)=(d+1)mod 4. FIG. 3B illustrates the assignment after oneadditional server is added and the hash function is changed tof(d)=(d+1)mod 5. In FIG. 3B, circles show the mapping with 4 servers andsquares show the mapping with 5 servers. Almost every document is mappedto a different server as a result of the addition of the new server.

A characteristic of this hash function and many other standard hashfunctions is that when the range of the function is modified, themapping is completely reshuffled. That is, most documents are mapped todifferent servers than they were mapped to before the change. A completereshuffling of the distribution of documents to servers is quitedisruptive to a caching scheme. After each server is added, every serverwill need to request copies of the documents for which it is nowresponsible from the original document sites. Adding or removing aserver, therefore, places a load on the cache servers and the originalsites.

In addition to the problem of reshuffling data upon a change in thenumber of servers there is another complication. When a change in thenumber of servers occurs, users have to be notified of the change sothat they can start to use a new hash function that includes the newnumber of cache servers. If users can be notified of the changesimultaneously this does not present a problem, but in a network such asthe Internet, such global synchronous notification is very difficult toachieve. It is feasible, however, to assume that notification aboutserver changes can be done by slowly propagating the information fromsystem to system, for example in a manner similar to the way thatnetwork news is distributed. As a consequence, the set of cache serversrecognized by each user may differ widely. A user's “view” is a term forthe set of servers that the user knows exist. Because synchronousnotification is impossible, different users are very likely to havedifferent views.

The example of FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B can also be used to illustrate theeffects of multiple views of the servers on the caching scheme. If someusers are aware of the addition of server 4 and some of the users arenot aware of the addition of server 4, then there are two views of thesystem held by users. One view (the “old” view) is {0,1,2,3} and theother view (the “new” view) is {0,1,2,3,4}. Users not aware of theaddition of server 4 use the old mapping of documents to serversrepresented by the circles. Users aware of the new server 4 use the newmapping represented by the squares, which is almost a completereshuffling of the old mappings. To work in a scheme where users havedifferent views, cache servers must serve requests for the documentsallocated in all users' views. As a result, the number of documents thata server is responsible for, in this example in which one server wasadded, is almost doubled. For example, users with the old view useserver 2 for the documents 5 and 29, while users with the new view useserver 2 for documents 11 and 36. Server 2 will receive requests for allof these documents, thus effectively doubling the requirements on theserver. The total number of documents that a server is responsible foris called its load. Referring to FIG. 3B, the load of server 2 is 4since there are two documents from each view. Using a standard hashfunction, each view increases the load.

A further complication results from having a single document assigned todifferent cache servers in different views. If there are many clientswith many different views, then a large number of cache servers can beresponsible for a document. This in turn implies that the original siteis more likely to become overloaded with requests for copies frommultiple cache servers. For example, referring to FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B,document 7 is assigned to server 0 in the view {0,1,2,3} and to server 3in the view {0, 1,2,3,4}. The original site for document 7 has to supplya copy to both server 0 and server 3. The total number of servers towhich a document is assigned is called the spread of the document. Forexample, the spread of document 5 in the example of FIG. 3A and FIG. 3Bis 2. Using a standard hash function, the spread of a document increaseswith the number of views.

In summary, the use of standard hash functions to identify a resource(for example, a cache server) for a particular request (for example, adocument) results in a greatly increased load and spread when the numberof resources (cache servers) changes, and there are, accordingly,multiple views. This drawback can have a great impact on performancewhen the number of documents and servers is large.

It should be noted that the approach of allocating responsibility foreach document to different servers is less effective when the cache isexperiencing a large number of requests for the same small number ofdocuments. The large number of requests will all go to the small numberof servers responsible for the small number of documents The smallnumber of servers are likely to be overloaded by the large number ofrequests.

One approach for preventing one server from being overloaded by a largenumber of requests for the same document is to use a group of caches inseries between the user and the original site of the document, each ofwhich can service the request for the document. In one embodiment ofthis approach, if a first cache server does not have a document, itrequests the document from another (second) cache and not the originalsite. The second cache services a defined group of first-level caches.If the second cache does not have the document, the second cacherequests the document from yet another (third) cache. The third cacheservices a defined group of second-level caches. This continues untilthe last cache in the series does not have the document, at which pointthe last cache requests the document from the original site. Thisapproach provides cache layers between the first cache and the originalsite and it spreads the load among the caches at each layer. Differentusers can use different lists of caches for the same document, therebyspreading the load. The list of servers to request the document from canbe derived in various ways.

One approach is to use a tree of caches. In this approach, a userrequests a document by requesting the document from a serverrepresenting a first node on a tree of caches. If this cache does nothave the document, the request is forwarded to the next cache in thetree. If the next cache does not have the document, the request isforwarded from that cache to the next cache and so on. If a document isnot stored by any intermediate cache in the tree, the request eventuallyreaches the root of the tree and is forwarded to the original site ofthe document. In this approach, a cache retains a copy of any documentit obtains for a period of time. An advantage of a cache tree is that acache receives document requests only from the caches that come beforeit, and this limits the number of requests that arrive simultaneously.Thus, many requests for a document in a short period of time will onlycause one request to the original server of the document, and will notresult in cache server overload.

One theoretical disadvantage of this system is that the root receives atleast one request for every distinct document requested of the entirecache tree. This can overload the root with requests if the number ofdistinct document requests grows too large, meaning that this approachsuffers from potential scaling problems.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

One aspect of the invention is a caching system that prevents server andnetwork overloading and scales gracefully even when clients havemultiple views. Resources can be added and removed from a pool ofavailable resources without a reallocation of all or even most of therequests. Only the requests associated with the server added or removedhave to be reallocated. This is referred to as “consistent hashing”because for most of the set of requests, the allocation is consistenteven as resources are added and removed. Only a subset of all therequests are allocated to different resources. With regard to cachingdata, consistent hashing avoids increasing load and spread when thenumber of servers changes.

In another aspect, a series of servers is used that are chosen in amanner that spreads the load associated with a small number offrequently requested documents, and thereby prevents overloading. Thisis referred to as “virtual networks.” When used together, consistenthashing and virtual networks improve the ability of document serversgenerally and caching servers in particular to respond to large numbersof requests.

In one aspect, the invention relates to a method and apparatus fordistributing a request to one of a plurality of resources that includesmapping the request to a request location in mathematical mapping space,mapping each of the resources to a respective at least one resourcelocation in mathematical mapping space, and allocating the request toone of the resources based on a mathematical relationship between therequest and resource locations. An apparatus for distributing a requestto one of a plurality of resources includes the plurality of resourcesand an input receiving a resource request. A mapper in communicationwith the input maps the request to a request location in a mathematicalmapping space and maps each of the plurality of resources to at leastone resource locations in the mathematical mapping space. A distributordistributes the request to one of the plurality of resources in responseto a mathematical relationship between the locations of the request andresources in the mathematical mapping space.

In one embodiment, the mathematical mapping space is a circle. In oneembodiment the request is a data request and the resource is a server.In one embodiment the step of mapping each of the resources to arespective at least one resource location comprises hashing each of theresources to a respective resource location in the mathematical mappingspace.

The invention also relates to a computer-readable medium whose contentscause a computer system to distribute a request to one of a plurality ofresources. The computer system executes the contents of thecomputer-readable medium by performing a computer program. The computerprogram maps the request to a request location in a mathematical mappingspace and maps each of the resources to a respective at least onelocation in the mathematical mapping space. The computer programallocates the request to one of the resources based on a relationshipbetween the request location and the resource locations in themathematical mapping space.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a method for requesting datafrom one of a plurality of servers. The method includes generating anvirtual network of nodes in response to a data request and randomlychoosing a first node on the virtual network of nodes. The method alsoincludes generating a path from the first node to the root node on thevirtual network of nodes and mapping at least one node on the path to arespective one of the plurality of servers. The method also includesrequesting data from the one of the plurality of servers.

In one embodiment, the step of requesting data from one of the pluralityof servers is accomplished with a data request comprising identificationof the desired data and a sequence of nodes through which the requestshould be directed. In one embodiment, the data request also comprises asequence of servers that should act as the nodes. In one embodimentrequesting the data from the server mapped to the chosen node includestransmitting a request from a client to the server. In one embodimentmapping at least one node on the path to a respective one of theplurality of servers comprises calculating a hash function. In oneembodiment mapping a node on the path to a respective one of the serversincludes mapping the node to a node location and each of the servers toat least one server location in a mathematical mapping space andallocating the node to one of the servers based on a mathematicalrelationship between the node location and the server locations in themathematical mapping space.

The invention also relates to an apparatus for requesting data from oneof a plurality of servers. The apparatus includes an input receiving adata request and a path generator in communication with the input thatrandomly chooses a node on an virtual network and generates at least onepath of nodes in response to the data request. The apparatus alsoincludes a mapper in communication with the path generator mapping nodeson the at least one path of nodes to one of the plurality of servers.The apparatus also includes an output in communication with the mapperand requesting data from the one of the plurality of servers mapped tothe nodes on the at least one path of nodes.

In another aspect, the invention relates to a method for responding todata requests made by a client. The method includes receiving a firstdata request that includes a sequence of nodes corresponding to asequence of servers. The method also includes determining whether thedata specified in the data request is not available on a selectedserver. If the data is not available, the method also includesdetermining a next node from the sequence of nodes, mapping a server tothe next node, and requesting the data by transmitting a second datarequest to the server mapped to the next node.

In one embodiment the step of mapping a server to the next nodecomprises calculating a hash function. In one embodiment the first datarequest is substantially similar to the second data request. In oneembodiment the second data request includes a sequence of nodes. In oneembodiment the method further includes receiving the data from theserver mapped to the next node in response to the second data request,determining the total number of times the data in the first data requesthas been requested, and caching the data requested by the first datarequest if the count of the number of times the data in the first datarequest was requested exceeds a threshold. In one embodiment the methodincludes the step of responding to the first request by transmitting thedata.

The invention also relates to an apparatus for responding to datarequests made by a client. The apparatus includes an input receiving afirst data request that includes a sequence of nodes corresponding to asequence of servers. The apparatus also includes decision logicdetermining whether the data specified in the data request is availableon a selected server, and if the data is not available determining anext node from the sequence of nodes. The apparatus also includes amapper mapping a server to the next node. The apparatus also includes anoutput requesting the data by transmitting a second data request to theserver mapped to the next node.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of clients requesting documents from a cacheserver as known to the prior art;

FIG. 1B is a block diagram of clients using a hash function to requestdocuments from different cache servers as known to the prior art;

FIG. 2A is a graph of the distribution of documents to servers as knownto the prior art;

FIG. 2B is distribution of documents to servers using a standard hashfunction as known to the prior art;

FIGS. 3A and 3B are distributions of documents to four and five serversusing a standard hash function as known to the prior art;

FIG. 4A is a flowchart of an embodiment of a method for allocatingresources constructed according to the present invention;

FIG. 4B is a block diagram of an embodiment of a system for allocatingresources constructed according to the present invention;

FIG. 4C is an embodiment of a mathematical mapping space of the presentinvention;

FIGS. 5A and 5B are embodiments of mathematical mapping spaces accordingto the present invention;

FIG. 5C is a graph of an example of distribution changes that occur whena server is added to a network according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 6 is an embodiment of a mathematical mapping space in which thepoints are distributed badly in the space;

FIGS. 7A, 7B, and 7C depict an embodiment of a mathematical mappingspace according to the present invention;

FIG. 8 depicts an alternative embodiment of a mathematical mapping spaceaccording to the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of an embodiment of an apparatus according tothe present invention;

FIG. 10 is an embodiment of a group of servers according to the presentinvention;

FIG. 11 is an embodiment of an virtual network according to the presentinvention;

FIGS. 12 and 13 are each mappings of the virtual network of FIG. 11 tothe group of servers of FIG. 10 according to an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 14 is a path on the virtual network of FIG. 11 according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 15A depicts the change in the mapping of an embodiment of a virtualnetwork to servers when a node and server are added, using a standardhash function;

FIG. 15B depicts the change in the mapping of a virtual network toservers when a node and server are added, using the consistent hashingof an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 16 is an alternative embodiment of a virtual network according tothe present invention.

Like reference characters in the respective drawn figures indicatecorresponding parts.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Consistent Hashing

In one aspect of the present invention a mathematical mapping space ischosen and a mapping is used to locate requests and resources in themathematical space. A specific mathematical relationship is also chosento match a request with a resource in the mathematical space. A requestis assigned to the resource whose location in the mapping space has thespecific mathematical relationship with the request's location in themathematical mapping space. Referring to FIG. 4A, a request is mapped toat least one location in the mathematical mapping space (Step 492).Available resources are each mapped to at least one location in themathematical mapping space (Step 494). These steps, step 492 and step494, do not have to occur in the order shown, each can be accomplishedindependently from the other. In fact, in one embodiment, the resourcesare mapped once, and the mapping is stored for future use with eachrequest. Having mapped the request and the resources to the mathematicalmapping space, the request is allocated to a resource based on amathematical relationship between the request and the resource in themathematical mapping space (Step 496).

By way of example, in the embodiment of FIG. 4B, a client wants torequest a document from a server. In this embodiment, the request is adocument request and the resources are cache servers Server A 400 andServer B 421. The client 410 requests Doc1 from a server. Referring alsoto FIG. 4C, the client 410 selects Server A 400 by first mapping therequest for Doc1 and the available servers Server A 400 and Server B 421into a previously selected mathematical mapping space. An embodiment ofa mathematical mapping space 450 is a two dimensional space of realnumbers. Doc1 408 is mapped into the mathematical mapping space 450, asare Server A 400 and Server B 421. In this embodiment, the resource thatis the least distance from the request is allocated to the request. Inother embodiments, other mathematical relationships could be used.Client One 410 then allocates the request to Server A 400 based on thedistance relationship between Doc1 and Server A 400 in the mathematicalmapping space. The distance 418 between Doc1 408 and Server A 400 isless than the distance between Doc1 408 and Server B 421. Doc1 408 istherefore allocated to Server A 400. The client 410 then requests Doc1from Server A 400. Likewise, the client 410 requests Doc2 from Server B421 after mapping Doc2 and the servers into mathematical mapping space450 and determining that the distance 420 between Doc2 410 and Server A400 is more than the distance 422 between Doc2 410 and Server B 421.

The mapping space may be any mapping space in which the requests andresources can be mapped. A mapping space is preferred that allows forefficient mapping and matching of resources to requests. In theembodiment of FIG. 4B, the mathematical mapping space is a twodimensional space of real numbers. In another embodiment, the mappingspace is a line. In another embodiment, the mapping space is the threedimensional space of real numbers. In another embodiment, the mappingspace has more than three dimensions. In another embodiment, the mappingspace is a circle. In one embodiment, the mapping space is a circle witha circumference of one. In yet another embodiment, the mapping space isan ellipse. In another embodiment, the mapping space is a threedimensional sphere.

In one embodiment, the mapping of requests and resources to themathematical mapping space is accomplished with a hash function. A hashfunction takes an input (k) and returns an output in a given range. Hashfunctions can be used to allocate pointers or keys to a location in ahash table, which is a data structure having a specified number oflocations or “slots.” If h(k) is a hash function, key (k) is said tohash to a hash table location h(k). A goal in designing a hash functionis for each key (k) to be equally likely to hash to any of the locationsin the hash table. An approach to achieve this is to derive the hashfunction in a way that is expected to be independent of any patternsthat might exist in the data.

Most hash functions assume that the universe of keys is the set ofnatural numbers. If the input value to a hash function is not a naturalnumber, some way is usually found to interpret the input value as anatural number. For example, if a character string is to be used asinput to a hash function, it can be interpreted as an integer expressedin suitable radix notation. As an example, the string “mit.edu” could beinterpreted as an integer by using the ASCII decimal conversion of theletters in the string, and treating each character as a radix 128number, so the result would be the sum:(109*128⁰)+(105*128¹)+(116*128²)+(46*128³)+(101*128⁴)+100*128⁵)+(117*128⁶).

In a division method for creating hash functions, a key (k) is mappedinto one of m locations by taking the remainder of (k) divided by (m).That is, the simplest form of such a hash function looks like h(k)=(kmod m). Using this simple example, if the hash table has size (m=12) andthe key is (k=100), then h(k)=4. Since it requires only a singledivision operation, hashing by division is quite fast. More complicatedhash functions can be constructed using a division method, for example,h(k)=((ak+b)mod n) for some fixed choice of integers (a) and (b), and(n) locations.

In one embodiment, a family of hash functions is used whose elements areeach functions that map requests and resources to locations inmathematical mapping space. A random function (f) is chosen from such afamily of hash functions (H) and function (f) is used to map requestsand resources to locations. This family model of hashing is used becauseschemes that use a single fixed function are vulnerable to attack byparties attempting to damage the system, since the input that causes theabsolute worst case behavior of the scheme can be determined.

For example, if an adversary has the power to selectively disable somenumber of resources, and the mapping of requests and resources to themapping space is known to the adversary, then the adversary canselectively disable those resources that would leave a remainingresource heavily loaded, and possibly overloaded. The adversary caneliminate all resources in a portion of the mapping space, creating agap with no resources at all. All the requests previously assigned tothe eliminated resources might then be assigned to a resource whoselocation is on the edge of the gap. This resource might then becomeoverloaded with requests. A way to foil such an intentional destructionof the system is to add randomization to the scheme. For example, if thelocations in mapping space associated with requests and resources arechosen randomly, and an adversary is not aware of the random choices,then the adversary does not know the locations of the requests andresources in the mapping space. Therefore the adversary does not havethe necessary information to selectively disable resources located in aparticular part of the mapping space. Another technique to foil such anattack is to map multiple points for each resource into the mappingspace. This is discussed further below.

Randomization is added by choosing a mapping function from a family ofhash functions so that there is a uniform probability of choosing everyfunction. Thus, using a hash family (H) means that first a function(fεH) is selected and then that function is used to map requests toresources. For example, if both the set of (request and resource) items(I) and the set of (location) buckets B are in the range {0,1,2, . . . ,p−1} for a prime p, then the family (H) could be defined as all thefunctions of the form f(x)=((ax+b)mod p) for all a, b ε{0,1,2, . . .,p−1}. To use this hash family, a and b are chosen at random, and thisis equivalent to choosing a function from the family at random. Then, arequest or resource item is assigned to location ((aR+b)mod p). In otherwords, the probability that a randomly chosen function (f) from thefamily (H) maps the request (x) to resource (i) and the request (y) toresource (j) is the same as in the case in which the two requests aremapped to the resources uniformly and independently. The family (H) isused instead of choosing a completely random function because choosing,storing, and evaluating functions from H is simple and efficient.Constants (a) and (b) can be chosen at random. These values can bestored using very little memory, and the resulting function can beevaluated simply. On the other hand, selecting a truly random functionrequires choosing and storing a random table containing the value of thefunction for every single item or seeding a known random numbergenerator with a known value. Such a hash function may be implemented inhardware or software.

Although randomization helps balance load, the mapping does not have tobe entirely random. Other information about the request of the resourcecan be used to map the request or resource into the mathematical mappingspace. For example, geographic information may be useful for placingrequests and resources located geographically near each other at leastsomewhat proximate in the mathematical mapping space. Similarly, itmight be helpful for the location of a request or resource in a networktopology to influence the location in the mathematical mapping space.

For example, if the mathematical mapping space is a grid withgeographical map coordinates, the mapping function could be a randomdistribution around the geographic location of the resource. The randomdistribution would help to balance the load, and the geographic biaswould help match requests and resources that are geographicallyproximate.

The mathematical relationship that is used to match requests withresources can be any mathematical relationship that allows requests tobe matched with resources. A mathematical relationship is preferred thatcan be determined efficiently. In the embodiment of FIG. 4C the resourcethat is the least distance from the request is allocated to the request.In other embodiments in which the mathematical space is a circle, arequest is assigned to the resource whose location is the firstencountered when the mapping space is traversed either clockwise orcounter-clockwise from the request's location. In other embodiments, therequest may be assigned to the resource whose location is any specificnumber of points from the request location.

Once a request has been matched with a resource according to therelationship of the request and the resource in the mathematical mappingspace, the request is allocated to the resource. In one embodiment, theallocation is reported to the operating system, user, browser, or otherentity that will use the information. In another embodiment, theallocation takes place automatically so that the reporting actuallyallocates the resource.

In one embodiment shown in FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B, documents are allocatedto a plurality of caching servers. The mathematical mapping space thatis used is a circle that has a radius of 1. Both documents and serversare mapped to points on the circle using a hash function, as indicatedby document points D1-D8 and server points S1-S6 on the circle. Adocument is to be assigned to the closest server moving clockwise aroundthe circle. Arrow CW shows the clockwise direction of mapping ofdocuments to servers. In this embodiment, Document D1 is assigned toserver S1, document D2 is assigned to server S3, documents D3 and D4 areassigned to server S4, document D5 is assigned to server S5, anddocuments D6, D7, and D8 are mapped to server S6.

FIG. 5B depicts an embodiment of the same system after a new server isadded. The new server is shown as Server S7. With the addition of thenew server, the only documents that are reassigned are those now closestto the new server going clockwise around the circle. Thus only documentsD6 and D7 move to Server S7, other documents remain with the server theywere previously matched with. FIG. 5C shows the change in the mapping ofdocuments to servers before and after the addition of a new server.Circles are the previous mapping (as in FIG. 5A) and squares show thenew mapping (as in FIG. 5B). This shows a significant improvement overthe results in FIG. 3 in that many fewer documents have changed serverswith the addition of a new server. In fact, only the documentsassociated with the new Server S7 are reallocated.

In this embodiment, if a document is assigned to a server in one view,then that document's location in the mapping space is likely to berelatively close to the server's location in the mapping space in allviews. This is because another server would probably be in between thedocument and the server if the document and the server were not close toeach other. If, in this embodiment, server points are evenly distributedaround the circle, only a few document points fall close to a server'spoint. Even if there are a large number of views, only a relativelysmall number of documents will be assigned to a server, and the loadshould not increase more than logarithmically with the number of views.Likewise, even if there are many views, only a few servers will haveresponsibility for any one document. The spread of a document thereforedoes not increase dramatically with the number of views. Theseproperties allow a caching scheme to grow gracefully. Servers can beadded to the network without disrupting the caching and multiple viewsof the servers can exist without degrading the performance of thesystem.

The benefits of decreased load and spread depend on an even distributionof the resources in the mapping space. In one embodiment, requests andresources are mapped to random points around a circle, and a request ismapped to the resource whose point is encountered first when the circleis traversed clockwise from the item's point. In this embodiment, thereis a small probability that points could be distributed badly around thecircle so that one resource is responsible for a disproportionatesection of the circle. Such an unfortunate instance is shown in FIG. 6,in which points 6A-6F are all on one side of the circle. All requestpoints on the left half of the circle would be mapped to resource 6A.

In one embodiment, in order to decrease the likelihood of such anunlucky event as the poor distribution of FIG. 6, a resource is assignedto two or more locations in the mapping space instead of just one. Inthis embodiment, requests are still assigned to a single point on thecircle and are mapped to the resource that has a point nearest to therequest's point in a predetermined direction. When the number ofresource points (m) is larger, there is less of a chance that the pointswill be unequally distributed around the circle. The number of resourcepoints (m) need not be unmanageably large for there to be a very goodchance of an even distribution of points in the mapping space.

In one embodiment, the mapping space is a circle as in FIG. 7A. In thisembodiment, the mapping function is chosen from the family of standardhash functions y=(ax+b)mod n. The number of points (n) is the number ofpossible points that the requests and resources can be mapped to. Foursets of constants (a) and (b) are chosen randomly to map the resourcesand one set of constants (a) and (b) are chosen to map the requests.

The use of multiple points has the added benefit of making it muchharder for an adversary to create holes in the mapping by selectivelyeliminating a small subset of the servers, thereby overloading aremaining server and causing it to crash, which will then overloadanother server and cause it to crash, and so on. If the multiple pointsfor each server are evenly and randomly distributed in the mappingspace, the elimination of one server will not put a great burden on anyone or subset of the remaining servers.

Referring to FIG. 7A, resources B1 and B2 each have 4 points on thecircle. Requests are mapped to the resource closest to the resource inthe mapping space as measured in a clockwise direction. Request 701 isclosest in a clockwise direction to a point of resource B1 and request702 is closest in a clockwise direction to another point of resource B2.Requests 703 and 704 are closest in a clockwise direction to anotherpoint of resource B1. Request 705 is closest in a clockwise direction toanother point of resource B1. In FIG. 7B, the circular mapping space isdrawn as a linear interval of length one where we imagine that theendpoints of the interval are “glued together.” The points on the linemark the intervals shown in FIG. 7C. The intervals indicate the mappingspace that resources B1 and B2 are responsible for. Resource points areresponsible for the interval from the location of the resource to thenext point directly to the left. Since there are multiple copies of eachresource, resources are responsible for a set of intervals.

When a resource is mapped to multiple points, there is a small butpositive probability that when a random function is chosen from thefamily, two points from one resource could be mapped to the samelocation in the mapping space. In one embodiment, if this happens, somearbitrary fixed order of the assigning the points on the circle is used.In another embodiment, the probability that such a function is chosen ismade arbitrarily small by using more bits of precision.

In one embodiment, a request is made to the first resource in aparticular direction around the circle. If that resource does not havethe item, the request is made to the next resource clockwise around thecircle. In this way, a path is determined of resources to query for arequest. In one embodiment, this is combined with the virtual networksdiscussed below, but it can also be used instead of the virtualnetworks.

In another embodiment, a request is always mapped to the same locationin the mathematical mapping space. Each resource is mapped into themathematical mapping space using a mapping function that is a functionof the resource and the request. Because the resource mapping functionis a function of both the resource and the request, the locations of theresources in the mapping space will depend, in part, on the request.Referring to FIG. 8, an embodiment of a circular mathematical mappingspace is shown where the request 801 is always mapped to the originpoint at the top of the circle. The resources 802-809 are mapped to themathematical mapping space using a mapping function that is a functionof the resource and the request. Such a function, for example, might be(((f(i)·ax)+b)mod n), where f(i) is a function of the request (i), (x)is the resource to be mapped, (a) and (b) are constants, and (n) is thenumber of points around the circle. The result is that for one value of(i), (for example, i=1), resource (x) will be mapped to one location,and for a different value of (i), (for example, i=2), resource (x) maybe mapped to a different location, depending on f(i), that is, dependingon whether f(1) is different than f(2). Referring to FIG. 4A, the stepof mapping the request in step 492 would always map the request to thesame location. Mapping the resources into the mathematical mapping spacein step 494 would occur using a mathematical mapping function that takesinto account both the request and the resource.

Referring to FIG. 9, an embodiment of an apparatus according to thepresent invention includes an input 810, which receives a resourcerequest 815. The input 810 receives the request 815 and passes therequest 815 on to the distributor 830. In one embodiment, the input 810receives a request 815 over a computer network. In another embodiment,the input 810 receives a request 815 from another process on the samecomputer. The input 810 can be implemented in hardware or software.

The distributor 830 uses the mapper 820 to map the request 815 and theresources 850 into a mathematical mapping space and to determine theallocation of the request 815 to one of the resources 850. In oneembodiment, the mapper 820 includes mapping space data stored in abinary tree structure for fast access. Each resource is stored in thebinary tree, and then the request 815 can be matched to one of theresources 850 by searching the tree. Other types of storage structurescan be used as well, for example an array or linked list.

In one embodiment, the mapping space store has a functionAddResource(r), which adds a resource to the store. It also has afunction DeleteResource(r), which deleted a resource from the store. Italso has a function MatchRequest(r), which provides the resource that isgreater than or equal to (r). If there is no such resource, meaning thatthe request has wrapped around the circle, the MatchRequest(r) functionprovides the resource at the smallest numbered point. The distributor830 accesses the mapper through the functions just described. By usingthe MatchRequest(r) function, the distributor 830 can allocate therequest 815 to one of the resources. The mapper 820 can be implementedin hardware or software. The mapper 820 can store the locations of theresources in a tree structure as described, or it can receive a list ofthe resources 850 to be mapped with each request 815.

In one embodiment, the distributor 830 periodically obtains informationabout the resources 850 that are available, so that it can use theAddResource( ) and DeleteResource( ) functions to keep the view current.After selecting one of the resources 850 to allocate to the request 815,the distributor 830 allocates the request 815 to the one of theresources 850, and outputs any information necessary to allocate therequest 815 to the resource via output 840.

Virtual Networks

The consistent hashing method and apparatus just described isparticularly useful when combined with another aspect of the presentinvention, in which a virtual network of cache servers is used toprevent any server from having too many requesters asking it for aparticular document. The virtual network does not require anunmanageable number of messages to be communicated among the servers,and at the same time provides for a low probability that any server willbe overloaded. A different network of servers is used for eachparticular document. Use of a different network for each documentspreads the load so that none of the servers is at the same part of thenetwork for a disproportionate number of documents.

In one embodiment, a client requesting data from a group of servers usesa virtual network of nodes that are not initially mapped to servers. Theclient chooses a first node on the virtual network to be the node thatwill receive the client's request. The root node is the last node beforea request is passed on to the original site for the document. The choiceof a first node may dictate, at least in part, a path of nodes from thefirst node to a root node on the virtual network. As described furtherbelow, the client then maps the nodes on the path of nodes in thevirtual network to actual servers. Having mapped the nodes to servers,the client requests the data from the server mapped to the first node.In one embodiment, the request includes the path of nodes and theservers mapped to those nodes. If the server mapped to the first nodedoes not have the document, the server mapped to the first node requeststhe document from the server mapped to the next mode on the path fromthe first node to the root node in the virtual network of nodes. If thisserver does not have the document, it will in turn ask the servercorresponding to the next node on the path. Each server that maps to anode on the path from the first node to root node may ultimately bequeried for the document if the document is not located on theproceeding node. Finally, if the server that maps to the root node doesnot have the document, the server that maps to the root node willrequest the document from the original site for the document.

Referring to FIG. 10, a group of thirteen cache servers 901-913 areindividual computers, each with their own RAM, ROM, processor(s), andstorage media. The servers 901-913 are connected by a network 916.Together, servers 901-913 handle requests for documents. The number ofservers is not central to the invention. There can be as few as twoservers, and an unlimited maximum number of servers. The type of serveris also not central to the invention. In another embodiment, the serversare each individual processor boards connected to a single bus andnetwork interface. In yet another embodiment, the servers are individualsoftware processes that execute on a multithreaded computer system.

An embodiment of an virtual network of nodes that can be used with theserver group of FIG. 10 is shown in FIG. 11. This particular embodimentshows a tree structure, but the invention is not limited to treenetworks. Each of the thirteen nodes 1001-1013 represents one cache.Each node 1001-1013 can be mapped to a server 901-913. For example, FIG.12 shows one mapping of the virtual network of FIG. 11 to the servers ofFIG. 10. In this mapping, root node 1101 is mapped to Server One. MiddleNode A 1102 is mapped to Server Two. First Node A 1105 is mapped toServer Five. FIG. 13 shows an alternate mapping of the virtual networkof FIG. 11 to the servers of FIG. 10. In this mapping, root node 1151 ismapped to Server Thirteen. Middle Node A 1152 is mapped to Server Ten.First Node A is mapped to Server One.

These are just two of the many possible mappings of the virtual networkof FIG. 11 to the servers of FIG. 10. The examples of FIG. 12 and FIG.13 demonstrate that the different mappings from virtual network toservers map different servers at each level of the network. For example,in the mapping of FIG. 12, Server One is mapped to the root node 1101.In the mapping of FIG. 13, Server One is mapped to First Node A 1155. Ifdifferent mappings are used for different documents, there will be somedocuments for which a particular server will be the root, and there willbe other documents for which that server will be a first node or middlenode. This distributes the load associated with a particular position inthe network.

Mapping of the virtual nodes to servers can be accomplished using astandard hash function. The mapping can also be accomplished with theconsistent hashing of the present invention. Consistent hashing providesthe added benefit of allowing servers to be added and removed withoutdisrupting the caching scheme.

In one embodiment, none of the virtual nodes 1001-1013 are initiallymapped to a particular server. A first node on the virtual network ischosen. In one embodiment, the first node is chosen randomly from all ofthe nodes on the virtual network. In another embodiment, the first nodeis chosen from a subset of the first nodes determined by the identity ofthe client. In another embodiment, the first node is chosen from asubset of the first nodes determined by the document requested. Thechoice of a first node dictates, at least in part, a path of nodes fromthe first node to the root node. For example, FIG. 14 shows the virtualnode network of FIG. 11 in which first node D 1208 on the virtualnetwork has been chosen. This dictates a path from first node D 1208 tonext node B 1203 to root 1201.

Once a first node has been chosen and a path of nodes determined, thenodes on the path of nodes can be mapped to the actual servers. Eachnode on the path can be mapped to a server. In a preferred embodiment,the mapping of nodes to servers is based on the name of the documentrequested. Having mapped the nodes to servers, the client requests thedata from the server mapped to the first node. In one embodiment, therequest includes the path of nodes and the servers mapped to thosenodes. If the server mapped to the first node does not have thedocument, it will request the document from the server mapped to thenext node of the first node in the virtual network.

In another embodiment, each node on the virtual network of nodes isfirst mapped to a server, thereby determining a network of servers for aparticular document. A first server on the network of servers, and apath from the first server to the root can then be chosen for a request.While this ordering of steps is also a functional embodiment of theinvention, it has the disadvantage of requiring all nodes to be mapped.Choosing a path on the virtual network first, and then mapping the nodeson the path second, requires fewer nodes to be mapped to servers, andtherefore requires less calculation time.

In another embodiment, the request does not include the path of nodesand servers mapped to those nodes. In this embodiment, each server thatneeds to request the document from another server uses the informationabout the document requested to create its own virtual network, mapnodes to servers and determine the next server. In this embodiment, theclient need only determine the server mapped to the first node, and notthe entire path.

In one embodiment, when a server receives a request, it first checks tosee if it is caching a copy of the document or is in the process ofgetting one to cache. If so, it returns the document to the requester,after it gets its copy if necessary. Otherwise, it increments a requestcounter for the document requested and the virtual node it is acting as,and asks the next server on the path for the document. If the requestcounter reaches a defined number of requests, when acting as aparticular virtual node, then the cache server caches a copy of thedocument. In either case the cache passes the document on to therequester when it is obtained.

When consistent hashing is used to map nodes to servers, there is anadditional benefit that servers can be added and removed withoutdisrupting the caching scheme. Referring to FIG. 15A, an embodiment of avirtual network is shown in which two clients C1 and C2 have differentviews. C1 is aware of servers {1 . . . 6} and C2 is aware of servers {1. . . 7}. FIG. 15A shows a virtual network mapped to servers using astandard hash function for a particular document for the two views. Inthe first view of FIG. 15A, C1 starts with the server mapped to node 5.The path from first node to root is 5-1-3. In the second view, theservers are mapped very differently because of the addition of a newserver. C2 starts with the node mapped to server 6, and the path is6-7-2. No servers are the same.

Referring to FIG. 15B, the same views are shown, but with the mapping ofnodes to servers using consistent hashing. In the first view, C1 firstrequests from the node mapped to server 6. The path is 6-4-1. In thesecond view, using consistent hashing, the mapping is much closer tothat of the first view than it was with the standard hash function. Thefirst node is the node mapped to server 7. The path is 7-4-1. Since thenodes mapped to servers 4 and 1 are the same servers in both views, itis likely that server 4 or server 1 will have a copy of the document.

Referring to FIG. 16, the disclosed embodiment of a non-hierarchicalvirtual network is a circle with spokes connected to center node 16F.The root of this virtual network is the center node 16F, and any node16A-16E on the circle can be the first node. As described above, ahierarchical network has beneficial properties, such as being useful forreducing hot spots. Other virtual networks, like the one in FIG. 16 haveother benefits, such as a resemblance to an existing network topology,or utility for a particular routing protocol. As in the hierarchicalnetwork, a first node is chosen to receive a particular request, and apath chosen from the first node to the root node for that request. Forthe embodiment of FIG. 16, the path is chosen by a clockwise traversalof the circle. When the requests have gone around the circle and reachedthe node before the first node, the request is then passed to the root.After the path has been chosen, the nodes are mapped to servers. Thenodes can be mapped to servers using a hash function that takes intoaccount the information being retrieved. The hash function may also takeinto account other factors. Use of the consistent hashing describedabove provides the added benefits discussed earlier, such as the abilityto add and remove servers without disrupting the caching scheme.

Having described preferred embodiments of the invention, it will nowbecome apparent to one of skill in the art that other embodimentsincorporating the concepts may be used.

The invention as described with regard to cache servers works equallywell for general storage of objects in a computer or computer network,where the requests are data to be stored or retrieved from a data storeand the resources are the data store. For example, the invention isapplicable to a collection of documents that spans multiple disks, orother large data store, within a single computer system. Consistenthashing can be used to allocate documents to disks. This would helpbalance load, and allow for addition and removal of disks with a minimumdata reorganization. Virtual networks of caches could be used in such asystem between the disks and one or more processors. This wouldparticularly be useful for a computer system storing many documents onmany devices.

Networked distributed file systems, groups of computers that store largeamounts of data on an intranet or internet, and have too muchinformation to effectively serve on one server, can use the invention togreat benefit. Consistent hashing can be used to allocate documents toservers, thereby making it possible for servers to be added and removedfrom such a system with minimal impact on the locations of much of thedata stored in the servers. A virtual network of caches can standbetween the users of the distributed file system and the distributedfile system, to spread the load on the servers.

An example of such a system is a large library of documents. Anotherexample is a personal file service. Such a service would allow a user tostore his files on a collection of central servers. Any device connectedto the network having proper authentication could have access to thosefiles. The files could include such computer data such as electronic,video, and voice messages, commonly referred to as email and voicemail.Such a personal file service, if implemented for large number of users,would benefit from the consistent hashing and replication of the presentinvention. It could, for example, enable large scale military commandand control systems. Such a system could deliver messages that simulatea broadcast, by allowing many users to access files at the same time.

Another application of the present invention is in the area of servicingrequests for suddenly popular web pages. A server system using thepresent invention can provide service for “hot” web sites thatexperience short-term traffic surges. For example, sites providing a newrelease of software, recent photographs from outer space exploration (asoccurred with the Mars lander), and sites reporting scores during asports event of limited duration (such as during a college basketballtournament) receive extremely high volumes of requests for relativelyshort periods of time. The short periods might not justify a significanthardware investment. A server enabled by the present invention could befarmed out these sites to handle high-traffic periods.

A file system capable of handling many document requests also enablesdelivery of digital motion pictures and other content on demand using acomputer network as a delivery system. In such a system, motion picturesare stored in time slice increments such as one minute intervals. A twohundred minute movie then consists of two hundred files, each of whichcan be retrieved from a server. Delivering a movie to many users wouldplace a great load on one server, yet, by breaking the movie up intomanageable chunks, it can be delivered effectively from multipleservers. By incorporating the present invention into such a deliverysystem, the load of delivering the documents can be spread evenly, andwith the possibility of adding and removing servers without reshufflingthe entire file system.

Other areas in which requests are allocated to resources that couldbenefit from the present invention include, but are not limited to auser allocated to one of a plurality of data channels in acommunications network, a telephone caller allocated to one of aplurality of operators, and a physical object allocated to one of aplurality of storage locations.

It is felt, therefore, that these embodiments of the invention shouldnot be limited to disclosed embodiments but rather should be limitedonly by the spirit and scope of the following claims.

1-7. (canceled)
 8. A method for requesting data from one of a pluralityof servers, comprising the steps of: generating a virtual network ofservers in response to a data request; selecting a first server toreceive the data request on said virtual network of servers andgenerating a path of servers from the first server to a root server onthe virtual network of servers, wherein the root server is the lastserver on the path; mapping at least one server on the path to arespective one of the plurality of servers with an acceptable distance;and requesting data from the one of the plurality of servers. 9-59.(canceled)